and she showed Gud how to
cash in on the readings, and presently they owned the earth.

Chapter LII

He loads the dice, scratches the cards,
Hoists us up by our own petards;
And when low music thrills the banquet halls,
His shadow like a silent spectre falls
In grotesque imagery upon the walls.

A mad child left an empire's might
The kingdom of the day and night
And as he babbles on the palace floor,
He listens to the silver thunder roar
Like troubled seas upon some distant shore.

With froth upon a sensual lip,
He sinks in play some crowded ship.
Then lightly in an idle mood of mirth
As though it were a trinket of no worth
Down starry skies he flings some living earth.

Life's roulette table stops for him
To any cackling vagrant whim.
His own police are venal, full of doubt;
Indeed the cheapest little racetrack tout
Knows more what sportsmanship is all about.

His gold face and his jet black hair
The jewels his madness makes him wear.
His laws, a madman's irony
The moon his mask above the sea
Some morning he will turn his vacant eyes
And see the sun with jealous new surprise
And on the following day it will not rise.

Chapter LIII

And when the last sound had gone howling by and tumbled into the
bottomless pit of silence, Gud held his breath, and even Fidu ceased to
breathe and listened ... and listened for the echo that was still ...
and it was as quiet as the missing link, as silent as a broken heart, as
mute as a withered violet in a virgin's dream.

Chapter LIV

Gud had traveled many infinite distances since he had seen any sign of
matter or mind or spirits. In this region things were not merely dead!
they were absolutely non-existent, and Gud became a trifle lonesome.

He was in his ghostly incognito, for he always traveled lightly in
vacuous and doubtful regions. To sojourn as an immaterial spirit among
material beings gives one a sense of power, for what could be more
glorious than to see without eyes, hear without ears, ring bells without
hands or kick over tables without feet? But it is a very dull business
to journey along as a spirit in absolute nothingness.

Indeed it is a business as dull as a Latin conjugation. So Gud now
realized that he was sensing something with his seventh sense, which was
more acute than the canine instinct of the Underdog and alm